upcoming events

Blog

0

Every week, we will bring you “Gem Clips from the Classroom”, a series of posts on learnings in our classroom, to highlight the essence of the ilm of our deen, and how it impacts our students and creates a place in the deepest, most cherished niche of their heart, urging them to ponder and reflect on its depth and meaning .

In todays world special importance is given to personal grooming. Personal grooming creates a great effect not only in our professional lives, but is necessary even in our personal lives. It’s considered as important as acquiring education. A lot of stress is given to it and today lots of institutions are working to groom people.

What about grooming of hearts? In fact, what does this mean? How are hearts groomed? Have you ever heard about it?

Well, my dear friends, we are Muslims, ALHAMDULILLAH. We all know that five obligatory prayers, fasting in the month of Ramadan, paying Zakat and performing Hajj are a must. Do our religious duties end here? What about the rest of time when we are not doing any Ibadah? Do we still behave like a Muslim?

When I was a child, we were taught Iman-e -Mufassal in school. I just learnt it and never pondered over it, but today’s class of “Al-Arbaeen , An-Nawawi” (The Forty by Imam Nawawi R.A.), made me understand it with a completely different perspective.

It states that “I affirm my faith in Allah, His angels, His Books, His Messengers, the day of judgment, in that the fate good and bad is predetermined by Allah and in coming to life after death (resurrection)”.

We say we believe in Allah and all his angels. Do we really believe in all his angels? Then why do we tend to forget Kiraman Katibeen always? Why don’t we ever remember before doing any deed that it’s being recorded and that we would be questioned about it, especially while we say we believe in the day of judgement. We believe that everything good or bad happens from Allah and yet we curse each other and our fates if we ever face a difficulty. Isn’t all this a bit contradictory?

Well, this is contradictory because we have forgotten to groom our hearts and minds. Like we always remember the five pillars of Islam, we should remember Iman-e-Muffasal too. After performing our prayers, and coming back to our daily routine, we should repeatedly remind ourselves that each and every action of ours is being recorded so we should be extremely careful about what we are doing. Is our deed taking us towards our lord or away from our lord? Because, at the end of the day, preserving our iman (of belief in Allah, messengers, angels, books, Day of Judgement and destiny) in our hearts and reinforcing it regularly on our soul is just as important as practicing the pillars of Islam (of tawheed, salah, saum, zakat, hajj). Iman strengthens our Islam. With a weak iman, our Islam can never hold much value in the court of Allah S.W.T, no matter how hard we try to perfect our Islam and fulfill its obligations”.

Another thought from the same class,”Al-Arbaeen , An-Nawawi” (The Forty by Imam Nawawi R.A.), this time from the first hadith on intentions. In order to gain maximum pleasure of our Lord, we should make our intentions pure and only for the sake of Allah. As it comes in a hadith that “Actions are according to intentions, and everyone will get what was intended”.

Each and every second of our day should be in order to please our Lord even if its as simple as having breakfast. Our breakfast can also become an act of worship if we think that we are having breakfast in order to gain energy to perform Salah or the household errands that are our duty as housewives or to attend Madrasah.

After making the right intention, we need to guard our intention all the time because, like a pinch of dirt in a bucket of pure water makes it unfit for drinking or cooking purpose similarly if we add a small worldly intention with the intention of pleasing Allah it destroys the whole deed.

A beautiful example to illustrate this addition is like a young lady who plans to go shopping for a nice dress. While buying a dress for herself, she thinks of buying a dress for her mother too. On the other hand, there’s another lady who is extremely busy, but knows that her mother is a bit upset and from her busy schedule, finds some time and goes to her mothers favorite shop and buys her favorite color dress. In which case will the mother be more happy? Obviously the second case because the daughter had the only intention of pleasing her mother. Likewise a deed done to please Allah is much more rewarding than a deed with a mixed intention of both deen and dunya which goes wasted.

Hence, we not only need to groom our hearts but also correct and guard our intentions so that our whole lives become Ibadah and a path leading towards our Lord. May Allah guide us all. Ameen.